TWELVE YEARS PASSED
Somehow—
we stayed best friends.
We weren’t attached every second.
Different classes.
Different interests.
Different friends.
Ethan became obsessed with baseball.
I became obsessed with art.
He tried teaching me batting averages.
I dragged him through museums.
Neither of us successfully converted the other.
Then, when we were twelve—
my parents divorced.
That was the year everything in our house became quieter.
Dad moved into an apartment across Bellmere.
Mom cried when she thought I couldn’t hear her.
I pretended I didn’t notice.
And at Willowcrest High School’s feeder middle-school campus, I slowly stopped eating lunch.
I didn’t consciously decide to.
Food simply stopped feeling important.
Ethan noticed.
He never asked me to explain.
He just sat beside me.
Sometimes he talked.
Sometimes he didn’t.
Once, he spent fifteen straight minutes explaining why Bellmere’s baseball team desperately needed a better relief pitcher.
I understood almost nothing.
It helped anyway.
ETHAN WAS NEVER GOOD AT BIG SPEECHES
When I failed my first driving test at sixteen, he came to my house carrying two ice creams.
“Why two?”
“One because you tried.”
“And the second?”
“Because you drove badly.”
I threw a pillow at him.
Another time, I wanted to quit art after a girl mocked one of my paintings.
The next morning, I found my terrible childhood dinosaur drawing taped inside Ethan’s locker.
“Ethan!”
“What?”
“Why is this here?”
He examined it.
“Still looks like a potato with arms.”
“Then remove it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you can’t quit.”
“Why not?”
“The dinosaurs haven’t improved yet.”
I laughed despite myself.
That was Ethan.
He didn’t fix things.
He stayed until they hurt less.
When my first boyfriend dumped me three weeks before junior homecoming, Ethan brought chocolate ice cream.
We sat on my porch for ten minutes in silence.
Then he said:
“I told you he was an idiot.”
I looked at him.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I thought it.”
“That does not count.”
“It should.”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked.
